


Running Through All the Options (And the Endings)

by elven_enchantress



Category: Common Law
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:56:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elven_enchantress/pseuds/elven_enchantress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of why Wes is all too resistant to therapy, and why Travis is all too accepting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Through All the Options (And the Endings)

**Author's Note:**

> So I had a lovely list of fics I wanted to write for these two, and then went and wrote something completely different. It figures. I've gone over this a lot, and the finished product still doesn't make me completely happy. I guess that's the price I have to pay for writing on this particular topic. 
> 
> The various depictions of therapy are based off my own experiences. Feel free to comment if you find anything particularly wrong or off.
> 
> Title derived from the song "Save Me" by Gotye.

When Wes was fifteen, his mom decided they needed to work on communication, and took him to a family counselor. 

By that he means she picked him up from school one day, drove them to a bunch of tall brick buildings, ushered him inside and introduced him to Dr. Diane Greene, family psychologist. He doesn’t remember much of that meeting. The sinfully comfortable leather chairs, the bright green of the wallpaper, his mother talking with her hands, and sitting in silence while phrases like ‘long term goals’ and ‘effective interpersonal relationships’ are bandied about. 

The first meeting is the most civil. Wes talks for all of five minutes, making it the longest conversation they’ll ever have, when Dr. Greene shoots him a query about his school life just before they’re scheduled to end. 

He comes away feeling less paranoid about psychiatrists, and scoffs to himself when he sees one on television, complete with the stereotypical notepad and couch-bed. 

The next week he smiles at Dr. Greene and sits up straight in his chair. That’s when the questions start, and probably when things went straight to hell. But no one ever bothers to ask what went wrong—they just assume Wes was the problem.

~

At fifteen, Travis had already mastered the art of charming the pants off people and conning his way out of concern. 

After the third psych analysis done on him, the one ordered following the incident where he accidentally on purpose burned down the shed at his fifth foster home, he had gone to the school counselor and asked her what books psych majors should read.

She gives him a list of titles between his inquiries about her dog and his compliments on her dress, and he heads off to the library to do some research. One thing Travis always lacked is leverage. Maybe it’s about time he changed that.

~

Dr. Greene likes to ask him what happened, and as soon as she turns on the spotlights, Wes shuts down tighter than a clam. His mother looks on, fingers clutching her favorite purple stress ball, as Dr. Greene tries different approaches and he stares intently at the small hole in the rug.

He’s come up with thousands of scenarios for why that hole is there. His favorite one involves a Russian mobster losing control of his gun and shooting the floor by accident while the secretary attempts to disarm him with her knitting needles. Dr. Greene’s voice is a pleasant drone in the background, and it becomes much easier to ignore things like ‘so you yelled at your mom the other day, right?’ and ‘what happened between you and your father last Friday?’ when he’s dreaming that the rug is a magical flying carpet conjured into existence by a genie who lives in a flower vase.

Wes waits for silence. He thinks, and he dreams, but mostly, he waits.

The appointments continue until he learns to stop fighting with his parents. Then they get less frequent, and eventually stop. Wes keeps waiting, on the edge, afraid of something that hasn’t arrived.

~

It takes Travis about a week to get through most of the major textbooks on child psychology, and after that, Child Services is a breeze.

After all, when he can draw a perfect tree with his foster family surrounding him, engaged in a cheerful picnic, what the hell can they say about it?

The answer is nothing, so he smiles and lies. No one understands that he burns on the inside, that he hurts, and no one ever will. They can’t fix him, so he never gives them an opportunity to try.

The sixth foster home is lots of fun. The father is involved in drug running this time, so he gets a few of his brothers from house number four to come and pretend they’re undercover cops sent to bust marijuana dealers. His plan goes through like a dream, and after he’s set fire to all the packets of powder in the backyard he celebrates by playing Chutes and Ladders with Alaina, who’s seven and has a massive crush on him.

She beats him, and then they eat half the chocolate chip cookies in the glass jar by the sink and pass out on the couch, full and for the most part, happy.

~

Wes stops waiting when the Captain announces the impending couples therapy, and starts panicking instead. 

~

Travis smiles, and tries to ignore the burning in his chest, the small flames licking up his stomach. Travis doesn’t panic, because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word.

~

During their first appointment, Wes’s chest tightens approximately five times, and he has to start using the breathing techniques that Alex had taught him. It works until Dr. Ryan turns her attention on him, and then he starts looking for holes in the rug.

He’s mildly betrayed when he sees the floor is bare.

~

Travis feels all the charm come back to him, and tries to douse the fire inside his chest by smiling and concentrating on the lovely curves of Dr. Ryan’s calves. He has to resist offering to draw a tree, and instead concentrates on making everyone else laugh. 

He likes it when people think he’s mostly well-adjusted. Travis knows that’s not remotely true, but acceptance and belief are two vastly different concepts, and he’s reconciled himself to this fact.

~

The ride-along is hell, mostly because it’s practically impossible to find any rugs when they’re on a case. Also, forgetting Dr. Ryan is about the last thing he wants to do, because if he forgets, than he might start answering the questions. Wes hates the questions. 

~

Travis thinks he’s mostly succeeded in duping Dr. Ryan, because she seems much more focused on his lack of long-term relationships than the blaze scorching black marks inside his chest. 

Afterwards, when the fire has been controlled by a very satisfying afternoon of drawing guns on firearm cartels, he and Wes wander out to a bar to calm the adrenaline running down their bodies in shaky tremors.

They’re on the fifth round of tequila shots when Wes pillows his head on Travis’s shoulder and starts saying something about the depressing lack of carpets. Travis doesn’t really know what to make of that, so he throws the shot back and pretends it douses the fire rather than make it blaze fierce and hot. 

Sometime after this, when they’ve both stopped keeping track of the number of empty glasses, Wes looks up at Travis from where he’s essentially cuddled into Travis’s shoulder. His eyes are glinting dangerously, refracting the light from the cheap florescent bulbs overhead, and the fire flares up suddenly, with no warning at all, raging fierce and bright.

Maybe he’s responsible for his actions, and maybe not, but he leans down and presses his mouth to Wes’s, and that’s the end of it. Or maybe it’s the beginning, because Wes surges up and fights back with his tongue, and it’s sloppy and messy and a mistake, maybe, but neither of them cares. 

Travis moves his hands down to Wes’s waist and drags him out of the bar, not even protesting a little when Wes attaches his teeth to the curve of his neck and bites down. He can feel the fire flaming merrily, and thinks they can’t get somewhere private fast enough.

~

Wes opens his eyes, and curses all light when it stabs though his eyes and goes straight for his fucking skull. 

He looks over at Travis, who is drooling happily on the pillow, and steadfastly refuses to process the situation. Getting drunk is always dangerous, because when Wes is drunk, he stops waiting and starts going. 

Apparently last night he’d gone for Travis, and he prays to all the gods he knows that there was some measure of protection involved because he does not actually know where Travis has been, and would prefer to not find out in the form of a doctor’s STD report and sincerest sympathies.

He thinks about staying, and he thinks about waiting, and he thinks about poking his head over the side of bed to check the floor. He thinks about sticking around until Travis wakes up, and about asking for a shower and possibly breakfast. He thinks about answering questions instead of ignoring them. 

He thinks about how much shit Travis will give him if he goes looking for some hand sanitizer, and then he stops thinking and starts smiling.

~

Travis wakes up and resists looking over at the opposite side of the bed for about three milliseconds. 

Wes is sitting up next to him, covers drawn up to his waist, and contemplating a small bottle of Purell extremely seriously. Travis thinks about how Wes is the only person he knows who actually reads ingredient lists, and starts laughing into his pillow. 

“Travis?” Wes sounds panicky, and Travis guesses that it looks like he’s trying to suffocate himself right about now.

He turns his head to the side and smirks. “Do you want to take a bath in that, or would you accept a regular shower?”

Wes narrows his eyes and throws the bottle at his head, scowling when Travis catches it and stuffs it under his pillow. 

The flames are licking cheerily inside. Travis laughs and drags Wes back down with him, intent on making a very persuasive argument for ignoring the stolen bottle in favor of other activities. 

~

The next appointment, Wes actually fills in half a questionnaire and Travis snaps at the ever-adorable couple who insists he tell them all about his third foster mother.

It’s progress.


End file.
